Australian Phonecards
One Of Every Code Number

Each Issue of
Australia's Anritsu Phonecards was allocated a
distinctive Code. An original method, which indicated
the type of card (Trial, Generic Advertising,
International etc.) by the relevant initial (T, G, A,
I), followed by numbers indicating the order of issue
and printing, was found to be inadequate, and so for the
last two sets of 1992 (the Endangered Species Set -
Prefix 233, and the Christmas 1992 set, strangely
printed earlier at Prefix 218) a new format of a single
letter followed by six digits was introduced, and this
became the pattern for all future phonecards (with the
exception of a few reprints of earlier cards). The
letter indicated which group the card was to belong to, as follows:

The Card Code can then be broken
down further. Using the $20 Christmas 1994 card, Code Number
N943134a, as an example:

N - 1st letter indicated the Group.
N: National Issue.
94 - 2nd & 3rd digits represent the year of production. 1994.
31 - 4th & 5th digits represents the series number for the year. 31st
series for 1994.
3 - 6th digit indicates the
number of the card in its series. This was the 3rd card in the
series, following the $5 and $10 cards.
4 - 7th digit represents the value of the card. 0e = 0.80c, 0 =
$1.50, 1 = $2, 1d = $4, 2 = $5, 3
= $10, 4 = $20 & 5 = $50.
a - 8th digit (and not always present) indicates that the card has
added value. In this case, the $20 card has $20.80 value
encoded. The added encoding was used only on $10,
$20 & $50 cards, never on $2 & $5 cards (except erroneously on
Prefix 524). There are occasions where the "a" has not been added, but the cards still have
added value. These appear
to have been errors on Telstra's part.

Some of the
Not Used
Codes are the result of cancelled issues, for example, the
Apollo 12
series.

In most
cases, a series of cards is produced in monetary order, i.e. $2, $5,
$10, $20 etc, with the Code Number (6th digit) sequence being in the
same order. Occasionally, this did not occur, as is
the case with 95 09
Payphones,
the $20 has sequence 1, the $2 sequence 2, the $10 sequence 3 and the $5
sequence 4. Where this occurs, the phrase, (Code No's not in monetary
order) is used to show this.

If you
collect one of every code number, ignoring any variations regarding
Faces or Reverses, you will end up with 838 cards.